


Marked

by Ksco



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Amsterdam, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben & Rey Kick Ass, Ben Wants to Give Rey A Hug, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Meetings, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Orphan Rey (Star Wars), Pickpockets, Protective Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug, Sexual Tension, Soulmates, Strangers to Lovers, Torture, Unkar Plutt Is Not A Nice Man, World Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-08 09:09:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21473545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ksco/pseuds/Ksco
Summary: Rey gets the surprise of her life when she pickpockets Ben and accidentally triggers their soulmate bond.Shit.Prompt by @Reylo_Prompts.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 227
Kudos: 498
Collections: Reylo Prompt Fills (@reylo_prompts)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Our story takes place in the lovely Amsterdam.

_ “What’s all the love in the world if you find it at the wrong time?” - Ivan B_

_  
\---_

  
“What?” Rey stares at Plutt in shock, mind refusing to wrap itself around what he’s just asked her to do. 

_ Surely not_. 

Plutt’s never been an attractive man, or easy to get along with, but he let’s her camp out in his store on colder days in exchange for tinkering with the shoddy electronics that he sells and that’s good enough of an exchange for her. She’d be a fool not to be aware of the rumors that swirl about his activity on the black market, but he’s never asked for more than she’s willing to give. 

Never tried to involve her in his less than kosher dealings. 

Until today.

His brows cave inward as his jaw works. He’s pissed at her, just like he is about 95 percent of the time she’s here in his shop. What else is new? 

“I said,” he grits out as his face turns an angry, beet red color, “That it’s time to start earning your keep, _ woman_.” 

The man leaning against the other side of the counter leers at her. His teeth are yellowed, probably rotting, and even though she refrains from wincing she knows that her face definitely still shows her aversion to the very idea.

“I am not sleeping with this man,” she says evenly. 

“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Plutt suddenly yells, slamming a fist down next to the register. The delicate items locked in the counter rattle from the force of it. 

“You don’t pay me enough to even entertain the idea of this!” Rey shouts back. “You don’t even pay me in the first place!” 

She wants to slam her fist through something, too. Plutt’s face to be exact, but she can’t. There’s no one left in her life to bail her out if she’s ever tossed in the brig. 

No one who would even care. 

Instead, she clutches the motorcycle compressor that she’s been working on as if her life depends on it. Her fist tightens until the metal cuts deep into her hand, and blood begins to drip slowly onto the aged linoleum beneath her feet. 

It’s silent while she and Plutt stare each other down.

“She’s a feisty one,” the other man laughs suddenly, and the sound of it makes her stomach turn. “I’ve had my eye on her for a while now, you know. Make it worth my time.” 

They’re talking about her as if she’s one of the items he sells. 

Bile rises in the back of her throat, and her ears begin to ring as she blinks back the hopeless frustration rising in her. 

Unkar’s final mistake is to reach for her. 

She doesn’t think twice. 

Rey swings the compressor through the air with all her might. It collides with Unkar’s face, a satisfying crunch and a spray of blood erupting as his nose breaks beneath the force of her blow. 

Rey runs. 

_ Shit_. 

* * *

It’s a game. 

It’s only a game.

Waiting for leftover food to be abandoned by diners and snatching it up before the server can appear to throw it out in preparation for another round of guests. 

She has to see it as a game; otherwise she’ll go mad.

It’s made infinitely more cruel by the fact that not many people are stupid enough to brave the November chill when they have a better option. 

Being indoors.

Which is why Rey finds herself perched on an empty metal railing, meant to hold bicycles, not humans, hungrily eyeing the solitary couple that has chosen to take their meal outdoors. 

God only knows why. 

They look toasty, huddled together for warmth underneath the restaurant’s blazing heat lamps while she’s stuck shivering in the cold wind as it playfully tumbles down the narrow street, leaving an icy touch in its wake. 

She pulls her thin canvas coat closer to her body, curling her fingers up underneath the cuffs for the semblance of warmth, while the woman under the lamp leans into her boyfriend, gazing up with starry eyes and her heart on her sleeve. 

Rey’s stomach knots as she watches the woman’s hand creep up, wiping a crumb from her man’s mouth before closing the distance for a long, lingering kiss. 

Would they get a move on it already? 

Every moment that passes increases the chances that the server will come to check on them and rob her of her dinner.

Finally, they stand. The man tucks his woman into her thick, woolen coat and she winds a red scarf around her neck, shaking out her perfectly curled hair once she’s done. Rey’s toes tap the ground impatiently, beating out an unsteady rhythm as they lean in for another kiss, demonstrating to the world just how sickeningly in love they are. 

She’s pushing off the rail and racing toward the flimsy barrier that separates the restaurant seating from the rest of the world before they’ve even finished walking back into the building. 

They haven’t left her much.

The bones of a couple cornish hens, picked clean, a handful of rejected roasted potatoes, and an apple with a single, dainty bite taken out of it. 

Scraps, really. 

Garbage. 

The garbage will do. 

A tiny smile flirts with her lips as she leans over the barrier between her and the object of her sole attention.

The apple. 

It lies just out of reach, her fingertips just whispering against the smooth peel even at the crux of her stretch. 

Frustrated, Rey pushes up onto her toes, one foot shooting out behind her for balance and her middle pressing painfully into the sharp railing of the barrier as she channels every inch of her willpower into her lunge. The callous of her index finger catches the rough edge of the broken skin. 

It wobbles temptingly, but it’s not enough. 

She breathes in a sharp breath, and this time when she lunges she grunts like a crazy woman, throwing her body into motion just as the server swings open the door and steps through. They make direct eye contact. Fury and annoyance flash in his eyes as her hand wraps around the apple and the barrier shakes dangerously underneath her. 

If she’s going down, she’s taking this goddamn apple with her. 

“Get! Get out of here, you filthy street rat!” The server shouts, whipping a towel from his shoulder and snapping it threatenly in her direction. “People eat here! Shoo!” 

Rey takes off, the worn soles of her shoes slapping loudly against the concrete as she tears out onto a busier street, leaving a verbal trail of protest in her wake. 

When she’s sure nobody is following her, she slows to a stop. 

The apple in her palm gleams. 

A treasure in the midst of a horrid, horrid week. 

Rey swallows back the lump in her throat as she simply stares down at it, breath shaky and the hint of tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. 

Suddenly, she’s being _ pushed_, knocked aside like an afterthought as she fumbles in vain to keep her hard won prize in hand.

Her apple tumbles to the ground as if in slow motion, juice shooting off at a sharp angle as it hits with a bruising force before rolling away. It completes a single, lopsided turn before coming to rest at the heels of a woman with a fancy camera and a perfect, instagrammable outfit. 

Her jaw works as she stares at the wet spot on the concrete in shock. 

She would have savored that. 

A hand lands on her shoulder, an _ apology_, but it’s laughing and rushed. Then a group of young men push past her, eager to move forward with their vacation while her life crumbles into pieces around her. 

She _ hates _this city. 

The men, there are three of them, each shockingly different and _ definitely _American, dart across the street with the last, blinking seconds of the light. They slow to a leisurely crawl on the opposite sidewalk, ensnared by the flashiness of the street vendors that charm and cajole their way into robbing people blind. 

All for a few useless baubles that would later be thrown into a drawer and forgotten. 

People didn’t need trinkets to live. 

Food. Shelter. Companionship. 

That’s what they needed. Something to give meaning to their sad, miserable lives. 

Not a fucking momento.

She’s furious.

Anger is a funny thing. 

It pricks at her, swift and needling, working her over and leaving tiny wounds until it hooks into her skin and doesn’t let go. It’s no longer enough to simply glare invisible daggers into their helpless backs as she watches them walk away. 

She has to even the stakes. 

To take the hand that life has dealt her and mix it up with somebody else’s so that when it’s reshuffled, she isn’t left with only the jokers. 

Without pausing to think, Rey starts forward, ducking and weaving nimbly between tourists in a dance that she’s known since childhood. It’s startlingly simple to shadow someone, to conceal yourself despite being surrounded by dozens of people. 

Everyone is too caught up in their own lives to be bothered by a nobody like her. 

Rey settles on the tallest of the men to track, the one who looks as if he hasn’t gone a day in his life without running conditioner through his shining, raven locks. His broad back appeals to her, if only for the fact that it presents her with a larger target. There will be no missing him. No chance that he will slip away if he realizes her game. 

And this is a game now, too. 

One that she’s been playing her entire life. 

The strong don’t expect the weak to prey on them. They’re the alpha, the king of the pack, the bull in the china shop feared by all. 

He won’t see her coming. 

Until he does. 

There’s a moment, a fraction of a second really, when their eyes meet. He’s fingering the weight of the flash printed hoodies in front of him, and she’s studying the way the shadows hit the angled planes on his face when his gaze darts up, dark and curious. It’s a direct hit, and there’s something inside of her that intrinsically responds. 

He’s startlingly beautiful. 

Rey shifts, uncomfortable in such a frivolous revelation. She’s about to bolt, to run away with the sole purpose of escaping him, but then his friend touches his arm, drawing both his attention and his laughter. His face utterly transforms, lit externally by the golden sun and internally by a joy that shines so brightly that she knows she will never understand. 

To have that much happiness where it spills out through the cracks and laugh lines of your face? It’s alien to her. 

She’s lucky if amusement even shades her eyes. 

It’s another barrier between him and her. 

Not that she even needed to look for them in the first place. 

* * *

She’s been careful to keep a buffer between them at all times since their brief moment of contact, slipping between or behind the people milling around her anytime his intelligent gaze rises to do a quick sweep of his surroundings.

Looking for something. 

Possibly her. 

A shiver winds its way through Rey, starting in her shoulders and running its way down through the tail of her spine. It’s thrilling, really, this electric buzz of being both the hunter and the hunted. 

Eventually his restless energy settles, and his focus shifts to the shawarma truck sitting catty-corner from where she stands, obscured by the crowd waiting for the light of the crosswalk to change. 

Rey lets them carry her to him, crossing one road and then the next until she’s standing directly behind him.

He’s _ huge _ up close. 

Perhaps she should have picked a smaller target. 

With a steadying breath, she moves. Just a quick dip into his back pocket to snag whatever it was that he’d tucked in after paying the vendor. That’s all. She’ll be in and out before he’s even realized that it’s happened. 

Easy.

Her fingers have barely slipped from his pocket, precious cargo in tow, when an iron grip encircles her forearm. 

“I knew you were trouble the moment I saw you,” he says casually before he even turns his body to face her. His voice is deeper than sin, simultaneously gritty and silky at the same time, and Rey squirms, feeling as if she’s been caught with one hand in the till and he’s both smacked and soothed her at the same time.

It _ terrifies _her. 

“I don’t mean to be,” Rey whispers, blinking furiously down at her shoes to battle back the tears that are threatening to spill over. 

She’s so close to breaking that there’s almost nothing left. No hint of emotion in her voice to give him any insight into the state of her being other than the bone deep exhaustion that surely emanates from her in waves. 

There’s no way she doesn’t reek of quiet desperation. 

“Look at me,” he commands, and she half expects him to lift a hand to her face and force her chin up so that she has no choice. 

He surprises her. 

He pulls her into him instead. 

Rey stumbles forward, heels ghosting the pavement as he draws her arm higher and forces her stolen loot well above his head. She has no choice but to shift onto the balls of her feet, throwing her free hand out to his chest to brace herself from falling further into him. 

There’s a catch of breath in the sudden stillness. 

Her jacket pulls comically, sliding up her arm as his grip slips up to her wrist before catching again. For a moment she’s left entertaining the thought of twisting away, leaving him standing there helpless and frustrated with only her jacket in hand while she dances away to enjoy her newfound freedom. 

Maybe she’ll take his wallet for good measure. 

It’s almost like he can read her mind because the pressure increases into a vice, and she’s stuck fast with only the uncomfortable sensation of her jacket digging painfully into her armpit. 

A tiny shake brings her attention back to him. 

"What’s your name?” He asks, possibly for the second time.

He’s switching tactics. Trying to get information out of her. 

Rey swallows, then locks her eyes with his in a desperate plea. They’re so deep, so expressive that she feels like she could get lost swimming in his emotions before she even recognizes her own. 

“Please, I need this,” her voice cracks on _need_. She’s needed so much for so long. 

“You need five euros and a map?” His eyebrow raises as if he can hardly believe her. 

“I need to survive.” Her confession is soft, spoken on the trail of a breath, but she still feels like she’s betrayed herself by admitting it out loud. 

They’re staring, her face inches from his, so close to his chest that she’s forced to look up at him through hooded lashes. She watches as his pupils dilate slightly, rapidly shifting back and forth between her eyes as he searches for any hint of the truth. 

He must find something. 

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, his pity as piercing as a dagger to her pride, “but I can’t feed every beggar in Europe.” 

Before she can open her mouth to protest, she’s enveloped in him. His free hand skims up the back of her, sheltering her temporarily in his warmth and the deep woodsy citrus of his cologne, before plucking the pickpocketed items straight out of her hand. 

The irrational part of Rey wants to burrow into him, leeching his warmth until she’s sated and safe and the bone deep chill she’s felt this entire week has disappeared. 

It takes everything in her to pull away instead of acting on such a fantasy. 

His hold relaxes fractionally, not enough for her to pull away completely, but enough for her to slip through. The thicker cuff of her sleeve catches momentarily, as if begging her to stay, but he widens his fingers so that she’s moving again. 

Her fingers brush over the calluses on his palm. 

All hell breaks loose. 

Blue light sizzles between them, crackling as it erupts from the epicenter of their touch and twining around their joined hands before shooting off down their arms, dissolving only when it reaches the center of their chests. 

Her heart feels like it’s been wrenched in two for nineteen years and someone finally came and tipped the pieces back together. 

“What the hell,” he whispers in shock. “Who _ are _you?” 

She stares at the center of his chest, swearing that she can see his heart beating beneath the heather grey knit of his sweater. 

Soulmates? Her? 

With _ him_? 

She knew she had one, everyone did, but her life was a mess. What could she ever hope to offer him? 

“I’m nobody,” Rey whispers, already beginning to shake her head in denial. She would step back if she could, put some distance between them, but his hand is wrapped securely around hers again. 

“Not to me.” 

* * *

It’s the curly haired man that saves her. 

“Ben! Look! I found ‘_I Love Weed!_’ keychains!” 

_ Ben. _

What a soft name for a giant behemoth of a man that looks like he could swallow her whole. 

“Not now, Poe,” Ben says firmly. There’s a bite to his voice but it’s not directed at her. 

No, when it comes to her, his expression is still wondering. 

His gaze is locked on her, steady and sure. As if he’s drinking his fill and might never be satisfied even if he had the rest of time and space to learn her. They flicker rapidly as they catalogue her face, her messy hair, her cupids bow, the little knick on her cheek that she got from falling into the street when she was young. 

She’s sure that hers are doing the same. 

His face is less modelesque up close, no longer all harsh angles that make her catch her breath and marvel at his beauty from afar. She still can’t get enough of it. The vaguest hint of a silver scar threading from his forehead to his jawline, the carelessly scattered moles, and the way his brown eyes shine in the right lighting like they’re secretly honey dipped. 

They’re still holding hands, but it’s no longer the bruising grip from before. 

It’s morphed into something softer, having fallen just so, as if they’d come together by choice rather than circumstance. His thumb _ just _graces the tops of her knuckles, and her nostrils flare as she inhales sharply. 

He catalogues that, too.

It’s featherlight, his touch. Gentle. 

Nobody’s ever touched her gently before. 

“Look!” Poe demands, shoving a set of keychains between their faces. 

Ben’s eyes flicker away to glare at his friend, and it’s enough. 

Rey staggers backwards, hand slipping from where Ben’s still lingers in the air as if she’ll realize her mistake and move to remedy it immediately. His eyes snap back to hers, and he looks absolutely gutted. 

It feels like she’s been punched. 

But that’s better than going to sleep hungry tonight. 

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Rey cries, an all encompassing apology for everything that’s happened between them. 

She rips the fiver from his now slack grip, and then she’s running. It doesn’t matter where, as long as it’s far away from him. Far away from this street and these people and the painful knowledge that she’s willingly leaving her soulmate behind. 

Her soulmate. 

God. 

She dodges and weaves around people without pause, desperate in her attempt to disappear. 

_ ‘Find the flow_,’ her mother used to say. _‘Find the flow and let it sweep you away.’ _

And, thankfully, it does. 

The crowd carries her forward, urging her feet to fly faster and her breaking heart to beat steadier until, before she knows it, the sigil of the city lies before her. 

I Amsterdam.

It’s a promise of importance, of worth. 

An empty, _ bullshit _ promise. 

It pulls her in anyway. 

Rey almost stumbles at the freedom that she’s suddenly afforded as she parts from the milling crowd, but then she’s darting across the open pavilion as quickly as she can. She’ll be in countless photographs, something she usually avoids, but nobody so much as blinks an eye as she leaps the princess steps and scrambles through the empty cutout of the ‘d’. 

She might as well be invisible. 

Nobody thinks to look twice at the girl with the worn-out clothes and shadowed eyes. 

Nobody wants to know her name, or where she’s from, or the last time she put food in her stomach. 

Nobody cares who her soulmate might be.

Nobody... except one. 

“Wait!” Ben sounds as if she’s thoroughly wrecked him as he shouts after her. As if she’s ripped something precious from his hands before he’s even had the chance to savor it.

Rey doesn’t look back. 

She knows she won’t stop. 

She can’t. 

She’s already robbed him of his money. 

What kind of a monster would she be if she robbed him of his life too? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't supposed to hurt this much! 
> 
> Have [another moodboard](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/645436853717041172/645691861083881518/20191117_192432_0000.png) made by the lovely [DagaGada](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dagagada) to soothe the pain! 
> 
> Thank you [Theresa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmwillson3) for betaing! 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am... beyond words at the response to this fic. I figured it would be something that a handful of people would read and quietly yell at me about over discord, but damn. You guys. Thank you for reading, for your deliciously angsty comments, and for caring so much about this Ben and Rey. <3
> 
> Also...
> 
> Mind the updated tags, loves!

Three days. 

Three days of searching the city for even the faintest hint of her and coming up empty. 

Three days of feeling the biting cold of the winter snow and knowing that it’s secondhand, that it doesn’t originate from him. If he was shivering under his layers and blankets and thick woolen socks, how much worse off must she be? 

He can’t stop staring at his hand, the one that had lit up like a solar fire when they’d brushed against each other, as if their very touch held the power to disrupt the universe on a molecular level. 

It looks deceptively normal. 

Ben feels anything but. 

He’s going out of his mind with worry. 

And guilt. 

So much fucking guilt. 

When she’d needed him the most, he’d turned her away. Scolded her like a child that needed to be reprimanded, taught a lesson, beaten down until she learned that foreign didn’t equate naive. 

And now she’s out there, cold and alone. 

_ His _soulmate. 

She was just a slip of a person, hollow eyes carrying just enough spark to show that she was still alive. Still trying to hold on. If he blew hard enough, tried to coax her gently back into a world that was petty and cruel but also wonderful, would she flare back into life? 

Or would he be forced to watch as she took her last, shuddering breath and the final ember died away? 

God, he wanted to try anyway. 

He wanted to have a life with her. 

Had she wanted him, too, in the same, desperate way that he had in those heightened moments after the bond had fallen into place? More than life? More than oxygen? 

Even if she wanted him back, what kind of life could he give her? 

He wasn’t an easy man. He was too passionate, too temperamental, too prone to overwhelming emotion that, once kicked up, rendered him incapable of anything but explosive action. When he opened his mouth he was always abrasive, or deadpan, or just too fucking loud. 

A disaster wrapped in a human body, doomed to disappoint those who dared to orbit too close to his polarizing sun.

Which is why when she gazed up at him in those precious moments before _ fucking Poe _ had interrupted them, he couldn’t fathom why it was with stars in her eyes. As if he could be the focal point of her galaxy, the brightest star, the stabilizing axis to her orbit. 

Nobody ever looked at him like that. 

As if there was nothing fundamentally wrong with his very existence. 

Even his own parents couldn’t take him as he was. They’d shipped him away like a dog needing to be housebroken, only allowing him to return once he’d perfected the art of bullshitting in front of polite society.

It had taken years of literal begging. Every holiday, every summer, every sporadic phone call, asking to come home and only hearing empty professions of love and requests to hang in there ‘_just a little longer’ _ in return. 

Eventually he’d given up and just made Poe and Hux his family. 

Fuck everyone else.

And then she’d slipped her hand into his pocket and her heart straight into his. 

He drew in a deep, yet ragged breath. It caught along the way, as if enamored with the way that these memories, these fragile emotions from tender life events, still splintered and pricked at his mind’s eye in the deep stillness of the night.

Ben groaned quietly, turning sharply onto his shoulder to blindly grope about the unfamiliar nightstand for his phone. 

Nearly three in the morning.

Poe murmured in the bed next to him, rustling around before resettling with a deep sigh. 

In silence, Ben typed out the pressing question on his mind. 

‘_How long can an American stay in Europe without a visa?_’ 

Ninety days. 

He’s already been in Europe for nearly a month, traipsing about without a care, wasting his life away on the pursuit of fun. 

Life has been cruel to her, and he’s been _ having fun_. 

The chill from earlier returns in force, startling him into dropping his phone back on the nightstand with a dull thud and diving deep into the warmth of the heavy comforter. He wishes, desperately, that it was merely the thought of becoming her found family that has sent this shiver rippling through him like an aftershock, but, deep down, he knows it’s not. 

It’s something physical manifesting across the bond. He can feel what she’s feeling. 

If he screws his eyes closed and focuses hard enough, he can just begin to grapple with the tendrils of fear and the quiet desperation that emanate from her in droves. 

He doesn’t know how to comfort her, to channel some of the warmth from this bed, hell, even from the space heater he calls a body, and shield her from the bite of whatever outdoor hellhole she’s found to sleep in. 

He’ll have to find her.

Ben just hopes that when he does, it won’t be too late. 

* * *

The following week creeps by with painstaking slowness. 

Every night Ben shivers along with his girl, and every day he combs the streets of Amsterdam looking for her. 

First to be checked off the list in pursuit of her are the major attractions. 

He stakes out the Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank house, and Dam Square— anywhere with the potential to draw a crowd and, as a result, greedy, grabby hands. 

There is no sign of her. 

On the third day, Ben rips up the flimsy tourist map that they’ve been using during their stay and flings it at a trash bin, hitting an unsuspecting passerby in the face with the pieces. He stomps away with a growl, disappearing into a nearby bookstore and emerging minutes later, arms laden with various full-scale, professionally detailed maps.

They spend the next hour spread out at an outdoor cafe, dutifully sectioning each district to have as much coverage as possible in the least amount of time possible. 

He sketches a picture of her face from memory, and his friends take photos of it for reference before Ben folds the page like a precious memory and tucks it gingerly in his pocket. 

Ben is a man obsessed, and Poe and Hux are left to follow hopelessly in his wake, shoving coffee and sandwiches into his hands when needed and dragging him back to the hotel when the streets become too empty to continue. 

The clock is ticking, and they’re all painfully aware of it.

* * *

Time begins to feel elusive. 

He’s given up tracking the hours in each day, marking instead the passage of time through crossing off days on the pocket calendar he’d picked up and keeps in his back pocket. It’s poetic, really, the thought of someone pickpocketing it off of him. A small part of him hopes it would be her. 

If he had her in his arms again, he wouldn’t let go. 

The calendar lays open on the charging bar he’s sitting at, openly taunting him with its three weeks worth of hastily scribbled **X**’s, whispering that he’s running out of time and might never see her again. 

Ben lets his head drop with a heavy thunk. 

The pain feels good, grounding. 

Poe’s groan of frustration brings him back to the hustle and bustle of Schiphol Airport, one of the busiest hubs in or out of Amsterdam, and he turns his face so that he can watch his friend frantically dig through his bag. They’d reached security, and Poe’s passport was nowhere to be found. 

It’s a dance that they’re used to, frequently repeated and always resolved whenever they’re at an airport or cross paths with border patrol. 

He finds that he can’t muster up the strength to care about Poe’s dilemma. It’s so trivial. 

“Did you check the side pocket?” Hux asks, more interested in digging dirt from underneath his middle fingernail with a toothpick than helping Poe search. 

“I did! I checked those, and the pocket in the back, and all of my packing cubes.” Poe sits back on his heels, looking close to tears. They’ll miss their flight if Poe doesn’t find it soon, a fact that Poe is well aware of. “It’s not here.”

“Our gate closes in 45 minutes,” Hux offers disinterestedly as he moves onto the next nail. 

Poe tosses his head back and groans at the ceiling, then turns his back to Hux and unceremoniously dumps the entirety of his bag out on the floor. It takes another fifteen minutes, but eventually he digs up the prize. 

Immediately the atmosphere between them sombers. Bags are hoisted into place over their shoulders and onto their backs, and their passports and tickets gripped tightly in hand. 

They stand stiffly, facing each other. 

“Well, this is it,” Hux states. 

“Yeah, it is,” Ben agrees. 

“You’re absolutely sure that you don’t want us to stay?” Hux blurts out, not for the first time. His gaze is focused intently on Ben, as if trying to read through any lies he might tell them. “We will, you know, if you want us to. The rest of Europe can wait.” 

Ben draws Hux into a fierce, impulsive hug, motioning for Poe to join them seconds later when he glances up and catches a look of intense sadness on their friend’s face. He crashes into them. It’s awkward for a moment with the bags on their backs but Ben’s wingspan is large and, after a little shuffling, they fit together comfortably. 

“I’ll miss you guys,” Ben chokes out the words, muffled from where his face is pressed tightly between their heads. He can taste hair gel and the artificial strawberry of the shampoo they’d been forced to pick up after leaving their last bottle behind in Berlin.

Ben doesn’t care.

He wouldn’t trade this moment for the world.

* * *

The first inclination that something is wrong is the tingling in his hands. 

It doesn’t make sense, seeing as he’s both indoors and wearing thick gloves, so it has to be her. 

But why? 

“Hello, how may I help you today?” The barista asks, her tone perky and overly loud. 

It’s a perfect complement to the obnoxiously bright Christmas decorations that have appeared in the city seemingly overnight. Even the music seems to be getting in on the mirth as the first stanza of _ Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas _ serenades them softly from hidden speakers. 

_ Have yourself a merry little Christmas_. 

Ben fiddles with the gift card display while he pretends to ponder his choices, eyes roving unseeingly over the menu despite knowing exactly what he’s planning on ordering. 

_ Let your heart be light. _

He makes quick work of the task, intently tapping each card back into place, aligning them into tidy, perfectly organized, evenly spaced stacks while staunchly ignoring the warnings lighting up his brain.

_ From now on your troubles will be out of sight. _

His entire body is tingling now, tiny pins and needles setting his nerve endings alight. 

_ Fuck_. 

It’s not working. 

If anything, he’s even more acutely aware of the connection he has with her. 

Their bond has got to stop screaming at him. 

It’s been nearly a month since he’s begun searching, and, while he hasn’t given up looking for her, he’s given up on trying to communicate in these in-between moments. 

He’s doing the best he can. 

One gloved hand snakes through his hair, his fingers stopping as they reach the crown and applying pressure, pulling just enough to provide the blunt edge of pain, part distraction, part self-inflicted punishment. 

He’s no longer simply perusing the board, he’s glaring intently at it. 

To everyone else, he’s the epitome of a spoiled millennial, caught in the throws of indecisiveness in the quest for the perfect cup of coffee. To himself, he’s not even sure when he started feeling so utterly helpless. 

“Sir?” The barista ducks her head a bit to the left to make eye contact, smiling animatedly as she turns slightly to point out her favorite drinks on the board. “I can make some recommendations.” 

The words are lost to Ben. 

It’s as if the air itself has been sucked clean from the room, sweeping up the chatter and sounds of the coffee shop and sending it straight out the door. Whatever is happening, it’s thick, tangible, and wildly otherworldly. Ben feels like he could slash his hand through the air like an invisible knife, Will Parry style, and cut through the very fabric of the space-time continuum and into another world.

“Ben?” 

It’s so timid.

He turns, gaping like a fish out of water, stunned to see her standing mere feet away from him, smack dab in the middle of where the display of obnoxious Christmas mugs had stood not even two seconds earlier. 

The same raggedy clothing swallows her up, only this time she has a knit cap pulled low over her forehead. Her hair is no longer twisted into the buns that he’d sketched in his haste to cling to every piece of her. Instead, it falls in twin braids that poke from behind her ears and brush the air just above her shoulders. 

She’s panicking, but Ben doesn’t note it through the lens of his curiosity. 

“Can you see my surroundings?” He lifts a hand in her direction, fingers splayed intent on reaching out and laying them along the curve of her face, but stops when she flinches. “I can’t see yours. It’s just you.” 

“You need to go.” She ignores his question entirely, already shaking her head as if in denial that he’s even there with her. Like she’s the one that’s cracked and has finally gone insane. 

But she steps in his direction. 

Ben holds his breath as she slowly lifts her hand to his.

“Please leave,” she whispers, despite her fingers coming to rest gently against his, pad to pad. He curls his inward, cupping hers delicately in the space between his fingers and palm before drawing their hands to rest against his beating heart. 

It’s an intense chess match, both stunned into silence by the bold move, both with eyes locked on the board waiting to see what happens next. 

“_Rey!” _

The voice is loud and abrasive and foreign, and Ben wants to intimately acquaint his fist with the intruder’s throat so that he can never interrupt them again.

Fear streaks through him as it cuts sharp through the bond. 

“Go!” She demands, placing both hands against his chest and shoving him forcefully, effectively flipping the board before the gameplay has even really begun. 

But time has run out. 

Rey disappears much in the same way that she’d appeared, one blink, and she was gone. 

One blink, and reality came crashing back in, heralded by the sharp rap of knuckles against laminate as the barista tried in vain to recapture his attention. 

“Sir? Are you okay?” 

From the stilted conversations picking up anew around him, Ben is positive that everyone had been witness to only his side of the conversation. For all intents and purposes, he had been talking to a mug stand. He’d lifted a hand to said mug stand. Tenderly touched it. 

_ Thank god _ he didn’t snap back to reality cradling a mug against his chest. 

“I’ll take the first thing you recommended,” Ben interrupts, gaze nervously jumping to land everywhere except the woman’s face. 

He just… he can’t right now. He can’t see the concerned pity.

“A chestnut praline latte?” The barista asks cautiously.

“Yes,” Ben replies decisively, fumbling through his pocket for change as the total appears on the screen. He drops it onto the counter when his trembling hand is too unsteady, and the barista deftly extracts the correct coins from her side of the pile before sliding the rest across the counter back toward Ben. 

“Careful now,” she says as Ben swipes it over the edge into his waiting palm. “Don’t want to spill again.” 

“Thanks,” Ben mumbles. 

An empty chair in the back of the room is calling to him. It rests in a sheltered alcove, the perfect nook for squirreling out of sight until his little episode fades to the back of everyone’s minds, but still central enough to keep an eye on his surroundings. He doubts that he’ll see her again, here in this crowded shop, but he still wants to position himself with the best vantage point possible. 

He sinks down in the chair, grateful to finally be off his feet while he’s feeling so unbalanced.

“Rey,” he whispers, trying the name out on his tongue.

It fits her perfectly. 

* * *

Ben’s heartbeat spikes when he spies her only a week later.

She huddles like an animal in the softly falling snow. Legs pulled up, arms clasped tightly around her knees, chin tucked as she desperately tries to ration her body heat. A conscious effort to conserve energy until she’s too cold to continue.

A single, forlorn paper cup sits nestled between her worn sneakers. 

There’s a small cardboard sign tucked under one toe, undoubtedly ripped from some back alley box based on the corrugated edge.

_ ‘Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. _

_ You’re my only hope.’ _

The flurry of emotion he feels pierces straight to the heart. It’s cutting, a mixture of brokenness, pity, and pride for his beautiful, clever girl. 

God, just the _ relief _ that he feels at physically _ finding _ her…

And suddenly he’s blinking rapidly, raising his face in supplication to the blinding sky as he fights back the tears that threaten to break, collecting himself before he approaches her. 

He will be strong for her. 

His booted feet come to a stop inches from Rey’s. 

She doesn’t look up.

Instead, she shifts her heels so that the cup minisculely tips in his direction. Her slim hand slips down from where it’s embedded between layers of fabric, and she reaches down to tap the sign with a slender finger. 

There’s the flutter of lashes as she picks up her gaze just enough to glance at the sign but not enough to make contact with him. 

Ben crouches, long limbs folding like a wilderness explorer coming in contact with an animal long thought to be extinct. Longing for just one touch, one photograph, but afraid to move too fast. One wrong breath might drive her away again.

Can she tell it’s him before her? 

The bond hasn’t lit up the way he expected it would, but maybe that’s a one time thing. The spark to kickstart their stubborn asses into gear and begin that ardent fall into the rest of their lives.

Then again, maybe she does know. 

Maybe she knows and just doesn’t care after what happened last week. 

“Hey,” he says gently, reaching out with trembling fingers, determined to tease the wisps of hair the wind has pried from her bun back behind her ear. 

The calloused pads of his fingertips have just barely made contact with her temple when she gasps and shrinks backwards, scrambling to snatch her makeshift bank from before him. She bristles, a wildling caught in the brief moment between flight or fight, eyes wide and terrified. 

Wide, _ blue _eyes. 

Blue. 

As pale and clear as the early morning sky on a brisk summer day. 

The air is knocked from him in a rush, leaving him numb and devoid as he falls back heavily onto the ground, uncaring and shaken to his very core. 

Blue. 

Not hazel. 

Not _ her. _

The chilling bite of the concrete makes short work of cutting through the denim of his jeans, creating a simple tether to something physical that he clings to with wild desperation. 

Hand over quivering hand, Ben pulls himself back to reality.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes, voice hitching and throat thick. “I thought… I thought. Nevermind.” 

He had to give this girl something for the trauma he’s caused her, the advance that he made- _ oh god_. 

He’d _ touched _her. Intimately. 

Without her permission. 

Trying to find Rey again was going to drive him mad. 

Tiny pebbles dig into his palms as he scrambles backwards across the sidewalk, putting sufficient space between them so that the girl can settle back into place. Her feet are planted firmly on the ground, and it’s clear that she’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. 

“I’m sorry,” Ben repeats helplessly again. He fumbles with his wallet, pulling out a wad of cash that he proceeds to shove unceremoniously in her cup. 

The rim bends under the force of his hasty apology and he winces.

She doesn’t need to bolt. Ben does that for her. 

* * *

His feet track a blind path through the city as he flees, weaving desperately down streets and alleyways until he’s thoroughly lost. 

He’ll go anywhere if it means escaping this madness that is starting to cloud his mind. 

If he starts to see her everywhere, in people and places that defy explanation, he’ll never win. They’ll laugh him straight out of the consulate when he tries to file for a visa extension without proof of a soulmate bond and deport him back to the states. 

That can’t happen. 

_ He refuses_. 

Ben doesn’t stop until he’s gasping for breath, great heaving lungfuls that leave him with one hand thrown against the abrasive brick of a nearby building and the other braced on his knee, both for balance and from the suspicion that he’s very close to decorating the pavement with his half-digested breakfast. 

Small matter if he did. 

From the looks of it, his vomit would fit in perfectly with the grime, trash, and what he heavily suspects is a urine stain already taking up residence on the sidewalk.

God, where was he? 

When he raises his head, he realizes that he truly doesn’t recognize his surroundings. Somehow he’s searched this entire blasted city twice over during the past six weeks, and he’s never even stepped foot on this road until now. 

The buildings on this street are worn shells of a previous life, running sadly into the ground, waiting with weary anticipation for the inspector to pay a final house call and close their doors for the last time. Everything screams of decay and disrepair, from the apothecary with the burnt out letters, to the dine-and-dash restaurant proudly displaying a ‘C’ Trip Advisor grade, to the skeevily named Uncle Unkar’s Electronics. 

There’s nothing here that makes Ben particularly want to stay. 

Even the people scuttling past him have their heads down, racing to get to their next destination with as little trouble as possible. Ben mirrors them, pulling his collar up around his face and avoiding eye contact as he strides down the street, determined to make it back to polite civilization as quickly as possible. 

He almost misses it. 

In the end, it’s the improbability of a shop in an area this desperate wasting precious electricity that catches his attention. 

A man stands in the doorway to Uncle Unkar’s, holding it open despite the impending snow. He’s thin and reedy, cheeks sunken past the point of comfort, eyeballs popping as he watches whatever scene is unfolding inside the store. 

Ben can hear his laughter, loud and raucous, nearly covering the sound of scuffling inside the shop and the shout that’s quickly muffled.

Against his better judgement he crosses the street. 

The new angle affords him a front row view to two men pinning someone against the counter. Ben’s stride picks up speed. He’s not running, not even sure he’ll intervene, but something has to be done. 

It’s a girl. 

She’s fighting, struggling and kicking and squirming wildly as if her life depends on it, and maybe it does. The two men have her trapped between them, one gripping her tightly around the middle with one hand pinning her head so that it’s turned away from him, while the other pins her wrists to the counter. 

A third, wickedly obese man with a bent, bulbous nose steps into view. 

He takes a long, considering drag from his cigarette as he looks down at her. Then he leans forward and blows the smoke directly into her face, laughing when she starts violently coughing. Another long drag, and then he snubs out the cigarette against the sensitive skin of her upper forearm, dragging the burning ember in a languid arc across her flesh. 

She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of screaming. 

Ben’s almost reached the door when the man finally speaks, and the words spoken by the bulbous man chill him to the core.

“Rey girl, it's so nice of you to drop by.” 

For the second time that day, Ben runs.

This time, towards her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. 
> 
> Please come yell with (or at) me in the comments! 
> 
> Thanks again to [Theresa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmwillson3) for betaing! 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve heard you hooligans. The chapter count has been increased to 5. Enjoy! 
> 
> Couple of things before we start! Plutt is **the absolute worst**. This chapter includes descriptions of torture, brief derogatory language (that I absolutely do not condone!), and lots of blood. BUT! It also includes a kick ass throne room-esque fight scene as compensation. Remember, what happens in fight club…
> 
> Now go get your girl, Ben! 

The room is eerily quiet as Unkar Plutt turns to the shelf behind him and muses over the tools at hand, fingers tapping a perky little beat against the thigh of his coveralls. 

In the end, he turns back with a flathead screwdriver in hand and something akin to a perverse madness in his eyes.

“You’ve caused a lot of trouble, girl.” 

_ Fuck. _ She’s _ so fucked_. 

There’s nowhere to run now. No chance that she’s going to magically scramble out of this choke hold that his hired muscle have her trapped in. 

Struggling only makes it worse, but she wiggles anyway, wincing and stilling when one of the men presses in tighter and she feels his heightened _ excitement _behind her. 

Rey wants to be sick. 

She can only watch helplessly as Plutt snatches her hand, spreading her fingers wide before pinning them to the countertop. 

“Hold her tight,” he demands, and instantly his hand is replaced by that of the man holding her down. An involuntary shudder runs through her body as the hand slides over her skin, groping like an overeager lover intent on closing the distance to his beloved. 

Only, instead of a gentle, wondering touch, his fingertips slot into the spaces between her knuckles and he presses down. Hard.

Even the grip on her hip tightens. 

“With pleasure.” 

Time freezes. 

It feels like she’s in the eye of the storm. As if the world paused and is holding its breath in the small, fragile moments before the center passes and all hell breaks loose.

Once the storm clears, she’s not even sure if there’s going to be anything left of her to clean up.

Plutt taps the flat of her nail twice with the steel head of the screwdriver, humming as Rey’s attention is drawn back to him. 

She knows him. Knows his sick flair for sadism. 

He wants her to watch as he draws the pain out.

As the flat end slides to rest between her nail and the tender barrier of skin there, Rey is painfully aware that he won’t be quick and he won’t be gentle. 

Plutt does not disappoint her. 

“I asked for one tiny favor, Reybie.” He _leans _into her as he speaks, stealing a pained hiss from her lips as the skin breaks. “One tiny favor and you failed me. He never came back after your little show. _You_ _know_ how I feel about a deal gone sour.”

A cruel laugh echoes behind her as Plutt dips the tip into the soft flesh and then begins to pry upwards, causing her to finally cry out and struggle.

She regrets everything now. 

Stumbling into the shop on that cold winter’s day when she was thirteen, all scraggly limbs and flat as a board, but good with her hands and eager to work just for the chance to survive.

Not leaving at seventeen when that first spark of interest had flared in a customer’s eyes as he spoke to her developing chest instead of her face and Plutt’s gaze had turned sharp and calculating. 

Laughing instead of running when she’d scrambled to catch the packet of birth control Plutt tossed her on her nineteenth birthday, complete with a snide joke about not wanting the value of his merchandise depreciating from a moment of carelessness.

Most of all, she regrets not being brave enough to take Ben’s hand when he offered it two months ago. She was fearless in everything, it seemed, except escape. 

Tears pool, threatening to blind her as she fixates blankly on the nicotine stained wallpaper and blinks rapidly.

If Plutt catches her crying, it will only make him go harder. All she has to do is make it through this and he might let her go, content with the sinister warning that’s been dished out. 

She hopes. 

Either Plutt looks up to speak or her mind has already begun to dissociate because, when he speaks next, his voice sounds distant. “What is it the midget on my favorite show always says?” 

_ Fuck_. 

This isn’t a warning.

It’s a lesson.

“A Lannister always pays his debts,” the man behind her rumbles smugly, lips ghosting against the skin of her neck while her stomach rolls in revulsion. She can just imagine his teeth gleaming wickedly from the pleased note in his voice.

“_Exactly_.” 

Plutt punctuates the single word by tearing her nail off. 

Every nerve from the tip of her finger all the way to her wildly beating heart is alight, sparking like a Richter scale swinging wildly. Pain ricochets up her arm with so much intensity that she can only compare it to one other event in her life.

The forging of her soulmate bond.

Only, this time, it’s a never ending catalyst of pain. 

There is no pleasure about it.

She wants Ben. 

Sometimes, if she’s lucky, she catches tiny glimpses of him through whatever the heck this bond they share is. Tiny moments of warmth and comfort and care that come trickling down when she needs them the most. 

She needs him now. 

_Desperately_. 

Her eyes screw closed as she channels every ounce of her willpower into leeching comfort from her soulmate. On having anything to cling to that might distract her from this pain. 

_ Be with me, be with me, be with me. _

Plutt moves the screwdriver to the next finger.

“Be with me,” her soft whimper escapes, unbidden, and her blood runs cold when Plutt chuckles. 

His hot breath stirs the hair on her forehead as he leans in to press his lips right above her ear, whispering words that ring like the final nail being driven into her coffin.

“Nobody is coming for you, dear.” Plutt steps away, the flicker of his lighter catching before cigarette smoke is blown into her face after a long drag. He chuckles softly. “Rey girl, so nice of you to drop by.” 

She knows. The vulnerable girl inside her that she likes to lock away is screaming that he’s right. 

Nobody comes back for her. 

Does that stop the hope that maybe, just this once, the universe will prove them both wrong? Of course not, but as Plutt moves his way through de-nailing the next finger, that hope begins to dwindle. 

_ Be with me? _

Her own parents didn’t even care enough to be with her. They’d ditched her with no more than a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the head at the first sign she was capable of scraping by on her own.

Soulmate or not, why would someone she’d met randomly on the street be any different? 

Her skin pinches as the screwdriver presses in again, a sharp pinprick of pain warning of the oncoming wave that’s about to engulf her. 

She won’t cry out again, she refuses. 

A stone. 

Cool and centered. Unconcerned with the world. That’s what she’ll be. 

Even when Plutt’s face looms to encompass the entirety of her vision, she doesn’t flinch. 

“How does it feel to be alone?” He taunts. 

The bell on the door chimes at the same time that glass shatters. The man that’s been posted there groans as if the very air has been driven from his body.

“She’s not alone.” 

A sharp crack follows as fist collides with bone. The spray of blood showers down on her, speckling the countertop before the man standing to her left goes down.

* * *

After that, time unfolds in a ‘_blink and you’ll miss it_’ kind of way.

One moment, she’s struggling fiercely to break from the grip of the creep behind her, and in the next, she’s free, scrambling for purchase on the linoleum floor when a hand _ engulfs _ her bicep and yanks her away. 

She ends up having no complaints about where she ends up. 

Ben’s arm wraps protectively around her, crushing her against his chest as he peers down at her with a mix of worry and rapture. 

His eyes move rapidly over her body, cataloging everything from the open wound on her forearm, to the little thumbprint bruises forming along her jawline, to her cradled hand between them.

“Hey,” he breathes, his eyes finally lifting to meet hers as a soft, tentative smile flirts across his lips for the briefest of moments.

Somewhere, in her peripherals, she registers that Plutt is screaming obscenities, but whether it’s directed at her and her soulmate or the incompetence of his own men, she’s unsure. 

_ She’s busy_. 

Surprise has afforded them a few precious seconds and she refuses to squander them.

Her eyes drink in Ben, even as his flicker away every few milliseconds to clock the location of the threat around them. She reaches up to lay a trembling palm along his jawline and his attention snaps to her immediately.

“Hey,” Rey echoes, somberly, pouring every ounce of her gratitude into their bond. “_Thank you_.” 

It’s all she can say, really, before his hand moves to the back of her head and he draws her in to press his lips against her crown. 

“I think we need to kick some butt now,” he whispers into her hair. 

Peering over her shoulder from the safety of her soulmate’s arms is the wrong move. If Plutt didn’t want to murder her before, he certainly looks willing to do it now. 

A twisted vein throbs in his forehead, prominent and unsteady, looking as if it could burst just as quickly as the man himself.

That’s not what draws her attention though. 

It’s the hard silence that falls after his violent outburst.

On any other day, Ben’s nationality alone would make him a prize to be won. Plutt would take one look at his breitling clad wrist and tailored peacoat and he’d be tripping over himself trying to get Ben into the store.

Today though? 

Today Ben’s interrupted something important, and the cold calculation etched deep in Plutt’s darkening gaze is every bit as foreboding and emotionally devoid as his face is explosive.

It actually scares her. 

He’s capable of anything right now. 

Ben’s hold tightens around her. 

“Take the small one with the broken nose,” he whispers quietly. “I can cover the other three. We just need to get out the door.” 

Rey nods against him, then snakes her hand around his back to grope blindly at the shelving units behind them. It’s where she had kept the small parts, little miscellaneous bits and bobs that didn’t rightfully belong to anything anymore but she never had the heart to throw out. 

When her hand closes around air, she pushes into Ben, carrying them back a step and inviting a humorless laugh from Plutt. 

“You think you can save him, Rey?” Plutt’s taunt hangs heavy in the air as her fingers curl around the edge of a plastic milk jug cut down to use as a storage container. “You can’t even save yourself.” 

_ Something _snaps in that moment, a moment of pure, instinctual understanding between them as they move in unison. 

Ben twists, spinning Rey out from under him to unleash her tiny, but ultimately harmless, army of pointed screws into the air. It distracts the men long enough for her to snatch a [ soldering iron](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1XEcjXsnrK1RjSspkq6yuvXXan.jpg) from the shelf and wind the cord around her injured hand.

If the solderer proved ineffective, the least she could do was clothesline them. 

“Nice,” Ben says, glancing over her weapon of choice once they resettled back to back, all bases covered. 

The tallest man, the perv that had her pinned against the table like a lamb led to slaughter, rushes them. He staggers like a drunk, weaving before rearing at the last minute in an attempt to bludgeon Ben in the head with the metal coin bank that Plutt kept to collect for pretend charities. 

Ben scrambles, blindly reaching for the first thing that his hand falls to on the shelf.

Metal clangs as he meets the man thrust for thrust. 

They grapple for a moment, then Ben kicks out, sending the man sprawling back against the countertop. 

Their gaze locks, and Rey can’t help but note that they’re both wide eyed and vibrating with adrenaline from the spark that sings between them.

She nods, breathless despite feeling frozen in place, drawing Ben’s attention to the refurbished exhaust pipe that he clutches in a white knuckled grip. She remembers the piece—she’d scavenged it herself and scrubbed every speck of rust from it only a few months prior. 

“Packing twelve inches, Ben?” She asks blithely.

For a fraction of a second his brow knits, then it clears and he snorts while breaking into a cheeky grin. The door man swipes, hoping to bury his switchblade low in Ben’s stomach while they’re distracted.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, woman,” Ben mutters as he hunches forward to avoid the hand from connecting with his midsection. Rey’s hand falls to his thigh, sliding over it and using his momentum as leverage to kick out at her own attacker. 

Her feet slam into coiled abs at the same moment that Ben’s hand encircles the wrist of the man with the weapon, twisting to wrench his arm behind his back at an unnatural angle. 

They both freeze as Ben’s eyes sweep over her tattered, bloodstained clothes and his words have a chance to sink in. His fist clenches as he scrambles for an apology, the man in his grasp whimpering as his wrist pops sharply in the sudden stillness. 

The knife falls from his fingers and clatters to the ground. 

“Rey, I didn’t mean imply that you…” Ben begins but never finishes. He’s interrupted as the man holding the coin bank crashes a fist directly into his abdomen, wrenching a ragged groan from between his lips. 

The room stills, narrowing until all she can see is her soulmate and the man who has landed a blow on him. 

Suddenly she’s moving, throwing herself forward with a wild shriek to bury the soldering iron deep into his shoulder. It resists briefly, but she presses, bearing down and feeling every bit as unstable as a toddler at sea until his flesh gives beneath her.

The sound he makes is straight out of hell, a demon unleashed from the fiery pits as he howls, throwing her off as though she weighs nothing. 

Precious seconds pass as Rey registers the feeling of weightlessness, the tension of the cord pulling taunt against her hand. Her wrist throbs from the resistance, and then, suddenly, the tool slides free leaving violence and blood in its wake. 

Violence that’s now directed at Ben.

She has half a second to fret before her head connects sharply with a wall.

* * *

It’s so dark.

The space around her is spinning. 

Why is it spinning?

She needs to get up. 

Get to Ben. 

Out.

They have to get out. 

Her palms press against the floor, and, for a second, it’s cool and grounding. 

Almost calming. 

_ It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. _

Beyond the tinny ringing in her ears, she vaguely recognizes what sounds like someone yelling, a wordless shout that her brain struggles to translate through the haze. 

Slowly, Rey opens her eyes.

She pushes to one knee and her vision darkens. 

Puts a hand on the shelf to pull herself up and the ground pitches. 

She’s forced to take a shaky step forward simply to catch her balance, squeezing her eyes shut as the room spirals and darkness begins to lap at the edges of her vision. 

Rey takes three deep, steadying breaths, and then peers out through narrow slits until the room slows and the foggy details begin to form shapes that are mostly solid and clear. 

Two men lay sprawled on the ground. The door man looks like he met the wrong side of Ben’s fist and the creep has passed out in a heap, undoubtedly from loss of blood based on the stain seeping down the front of his shirt and forming a soft puddle on the floor. 

He’s still breathing, as evidenced from the rise and fall of his chest, but his eyelids flutter haptically and stay closed. Something about it unsettles her, because, even though she’s certain he would have tried to take advantage of her had Plutt grown bored, she’s not certain anyone deserves _ this _.

“Rey!” 

Her eyes dart across the store and instantly her hand shoots out as an anchor against the oncoming wave of nausea the shift in perspective brings. 

Her entire world feels off-kilter, and it’s not simply from her injury.

Somehow, the last man standing has managed to reverse their roles, pulling Ben into a crushing chokehold by wrestling the exhaust pipe tightly against Ben’s throat. He’s struggling, hands braced to prevent the metal from crushing his windpipe, but he looks just as dazed as she feels. 

His wild eyes dart down to her hand, back up to meet her gaze, and then back down to her hand again. 

Rey still feels foggy, but the second time he glances down, her eyes track with his. 

Oh. 

The soldering cord is still wrapped around her hand. 

When she glances back up, Ben’s eyes shine with grave intention and he nods slightly. 

Winding the cord into her hand takes all of her concentration, perhaps more. 

It’s such a simple task, made infinitely more difficult by her brain rebelling against even the smallest command. Every twist of her fingers and rotation of her hands taints her mouth with the metallic tang of copper and makes her skull pound with the marching of a thousand tiny men. 

Twenty seconds later, her fingers curl around the metal shaft and, with one shaking step, she launches it into the air. 

It spins twice, cord unfurling ungracefully as gravity tries to pull it back down to earth. 

Ben’s fingers seem to emerge from nowhere, wrapping around the hilt in a backhanded grip as he plucks it from the air. 

Rey doesn’t see who finishes the fight, which man it is that shouts in pain and which one groans following the resulting crash that undoubtedly takes down shelves of merchandise in its wake. 

She can hardly focus on anything other than the tile beneath her when she falls to her knees dry heaving as the pain in her head flares brightly. 

Even with her eyes screwed shut, she can’t get a grip on her bearings. 

It’s too much. 

“Hey.” 

It’s Ben’s voice, deep and soothing as if he’s afraid of spooking her, and relief washes over her. His hand brushes the top of her head as if he’s the one that craves the contact, and then it falls, trailing down her back until he’s crouching before her and pulling her into a tight hug.

They’re both shaking. 

“_Hey, hey, hey_. I’m here.” 

His hand smooths gently over her hair, stroking endlessly as she buries deep into his chest, gripping with all of her might and thanking any gods that exist for this small mercy. 

They stay like that, her on her knees and him bent low, huddling together until their heartbeats sync and their breath stills. 

“We’re not dead,” she laughs shakily, nuzzling into him and turning her face just enough to catch the hint of the smile that accompanies the rise of his chest at his soft, single huff. 

“Yeah.” Ben’s hand stills for a moment in her hair, before he untangles his arm from around her. He cradles her head as he tilts her face to the side, frowning and swiping a thumb gently over her temple. 

It comes away speckled with drying blood. 

“I was worried about you for a minute there,” he says softly. His eyes are heavy, swirling with emotion that he’s not even trying to fight down.

Rey swallows heavily. 

She doesn’t say anything, just looks at him for a long, steady moment and then presses to her feet, using his shoulder to stabilize her. Once she’s standing, she offers him a hand. 

His lip twitches.

When he rises, it’s with her hand tucked in his, even though he doesn’t rely on it. They turn, taking full stock of the room around them. It’s positively wrecked, and, as her eyes move around the store, Rey realizes something. 

“Plutt’s not here,” she whispers, a sinking feeling in her gut. 

It’s only then that they hear the tell-tale click of metal teeth falling into place and the whisper soft scrape of a metal door easing open. 

Panic shoots through her. 

“The safe behind the counter,” she whispers. “Plutt has--” 

Ben doesn’t wait for her to finish the sentence. Without hesitation, he leaps over the counter blind.

There’s something satisfying about seeing Ben’s large body tackling Plutt to the ground and the mix of cursing and pleas that hastily tumble from his lips. 

“If you _ ever _come near her again, I’ll kill you,” Ben cuts him off threateningly as she picks her way around the counter. The gravity of his words sink into the room like a lead weight. “Do you understand me?”

Plutt’s eyes are wide, panicky, and they meet Rey’s for a passing second before they flitter away and his mouth snaps shut. 

A beat passes. 

And then, in the distance, a warning.

“Ben, let’s go,” Rey says quietly. 

She’s painfully aware of the siren that’s growing louder with each passing second. 

“He doesn’t deserve mercy,” Ben snaps, pressing Plutt’s face into the tile with grim determination. The man groans under the weight.

“Ben.” 

His name is a warning, an admonition. 

When Ben finally looks up at her, there’s a feral energy about him. He looks almost possessed, crouched over Plutt with blood dotting his person and hair hanging wildly in his eyes. 

His jaw works and he scowls fiercely at the back of the man’s head as he considers the single option she’s given him. 

Finally, his lips purse.

“If you so much as move before we’re out of this shit hole, I swear to god, not even the police will be able to save you,” he warns.

He gives Plutt a final shake to emphasize his point and clambers to his feet. 

Ben only stops after he’s stepped well into her personal space.

A thrill shoots up Rey’s spine as she stares at him, realizes that someone, not just anyone but her _ soulmate_, has finally stood up for her. 

She’s not alone anymore. 

The air feels charged with an undercurrent of electricity as he stares down, eyes darkening and pupils dilating the longer they simply look. For a moment, it feels like there’s nothing in the world that could prevent him from kissing her. His hand even rises, ready to weave into her hair and cradle her neck so that he can pull her forward and claim her lips with his own. 

But then she sways. 

And instead of his hand falling against the skin of her neck to draw her into him, he ducks, threading his arm behind her knees and scooping her up into his arms. 

She feels tiny in his arms as his blood speckled hand curls around her shoulder. 

Precious and protected.

“Let’s go home,” he says simply.

“Home?” She’s unsure that she’s heard him right. 

Home was, well, it wasn’t exactly a concept she was familiar with.

“Well, technically just my hotel room.” Ben looks away sheepishly, so she draws him back with a gentle hand over his. “But, yeah, this,” his fingers shift to weave in between hers, “this already feels like home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re on the upward swing now, loves!
> 
> Thank you to Toki for betaing this chapter! 


End file.
